# What's wrong with this picture. Congresscritters.\* **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 20, 2005, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867 "2005-11-20T02:14:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/41 "2005-11-21T04:01:23Z")
> [@lonesome loser](#): > > You people are missing the whole point. Why am I not surprised? > > Seeing as this is a right wing board. > > Congress is saying we don’t have enough money to help you feed your children but there is plenty of money to give ourselves a raise. > > This doesn’t bother anyone? > > Besides me? This is not a “right-wing” board. Most people say it is left socially and center/libertarian economically. Primarily, it is a board devoted to truth and fighting ignorance. If you often find that your views clash with most people on this board then your ignorance is probably the cause of your problem. People here don’t take the rant of the day and run with it without probing the argument for flaws. Yours tend to have tons of them so you won’t many affirming responses You also have to realize that not giving money to a social program doesn’t mean that people are claiming there isn’t enough money. There are philosophical issues involved too. Some programs need to be cut due to philosophical or practical reasons. Handing out money until there isn’t any left by default isn’t considered a responsible social or economic strategy by most people these days. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/42 "2005-11-21T04:04:33Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Handing out money until there isn’t any left by default isn’t considered a responsible social or economic strategy by most people these days. Depends who you’re handing it to, i guess. Remind me, again, how the current budget deficit compares with America’s historical levels of deficit and surplus. ---
**Author:** ![lonesome\_loser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@lonesome\_loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lonesome_loser)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/43 "2005-11-21T04:04:52Z")
Congressional perqs. [http://www.thecapitol.net/FAQ/payandperqs.htm](http://www.thecapitol.net/FAQ/payandperqs.htm) ---
**Author:** ![lonesome\_loser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@lonesome\_loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lonesome_loser)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/44 "2005-11-21T04:09:37Z")
This is very much a right wing board. Why else are they allowed to call people traitors and liars? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/45 "2005-11-21T04:10:54Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Do you really think that Congresspeople pay for their job-related entertaining and travel out of their salaries? Some, Yes. I never said all. It is impossible to work in that type of job and not incur significant incidental expenses. It could be anything from small dinner parties with foreign government officials to gifts. Congressmen also have to maintain a residence in the Washington area as well as back home. That is very costly in many ways. My wife works in international business and has to perform many of those same roles. There is no way that she gets reimbursed for all of them. A congressional salary isn’t very high when you look at all the factors involved. $160,000 may seem like a lot to a college kid in a rural area but it really isn’t when you look at all the things involves. My wife and I make somewhat more than a congressman together and I wouldn’t want to try to do their job on that sum. Their salary merely allows someone form any background to get elected and squeak by with what they are supposed to do. Let me ask this. Those of you that turn up your nose at their raise, how much should they make? Lets throw the ball back in the idiot idea court instead of the heckling court. ---
**Author:** ![lonesome\_loser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@lonesome\_loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lonesome_loser)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/46 "2005-11-21T04:16:34Z")
Most congresscritters, not all, most. are independently wealthy. Especially on the senate side. They have no need of a raise. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/47 "2005-11-21T04:17:28Z")
> [@lonesome loser](#): > > This is very much a right wing board. > > Why else are they allowed to call people traitors and liars? Let me get this straight, if it was a left-wing board, people would not be allowed free speech to counter poor analytical skills. Good to know. Again, this is not known as a right-wing board. If you see it as such, them you are probably headed to an intellectual abyss and should abort right away. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/48 "2005-11-21T04:18:29Z")
> [@lonesome loser](#): > > Most congresscritters, not all, most. are independently wealthy. Especially on the senate side. > > They have no need of a raise. The raises are so that you don’t have to be wealthy to be a Congressmen! :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/49 "2005-11-21T04:27:45Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Depends who you’re handing it to, i guess. Remind me, again, how the current budget deficit compares with America’s historical levels of deficit and surplus. I am not happy with the deficits either. However, that has little to do with the issue. It was a simple cost of living increase and went into effect automatically. Private companies do the same thing. It isn’t a “raise”. It keeps your salary where it is in terms of buying power. Asking them to refuse it is saying that they all need a pay cut. If you make Congressional salaries too low, then you close the position anyone but the rich. You won’t see huge numbers of poor people willing to take the job and they couldn’t get elected anyway. That is just crappy movie fantasy and it makes me question the critical thinking skills of anyone that advocates that. ---
**Author:** ![lonesome\_loser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@lonesome\_loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lonesome_loser)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/50 "2005-11-21T04:27:48Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Let me get this straight, if it was a left-wing board, people would not be allowed free speech to counter poor analytical skills. Good to know. > > Again, this is not known as a right-wing board. If you see it as such, them you are probably headed to an intellectual abyss and should abort right away. Name calling counters nothing. It makes you look childish. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/51 "2005-11-21T04:41:23Z")
> [@lonesome loser](#): > > Name calling counters nothing. > > It makes you look childish. The problem here is that no one called you a “traitor” or “liar”. You just made that up. Countering someone else’s argument with a more rational one isn’t “name calling”. It is honest intellectual debate and one should be open to it if they want to know the flaws in their thinking. That is what we do here. ---
**Author:** ![Updike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@Updike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Updike)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/52 "2005-11-21T04:41:46Z")
> [@lonesome loser](#): > > This is very much a right wing board. What evidence do you have of THAT? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/53 "2005-11-21T04:51:05Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Shagnasty > Let me get this straight, if it was a left-wing board, people would not be allowed free speech to counter poor analytical skills. Good to know. > > Again, this is not known as a right-wing board. If you see it as such, them you are probably headed to an intellectual abyss and should abort right away. > [@lonesome loser](#): > > Name calling counters nothing. > > It makes you look childish. Houston, I think we have a problem. There was no name calling there. You are just repeating the same thing over and over without any critical analysis or apparent thought. Did you want to debate your topic or do you just want to whine about people calling you on it? Your OP was about throw-away article that was a rant of its own and mentioned the Congressional salary increase in a passing way. The facts in the article and your OP were quite misleading. In addition, it is not going to work out well when left-wingers argue that congressional members shouldn’t have a salary that supports their needs. Not the least of which is that making congressional salaries too low leaves the position open only to the rich. You have to debate the well-grounded arguments of your position here and you seem both confused and unable to do it. ---
**Author:** ![lonesome\_loser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@lonesome\_loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lonesome_loser)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/54 "2005-11-21T04:57:24Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Houston, I think we have a problem. There was no name calling there. You are just repeating the same thing over and over without any critical analysis or apparent thought. > > Did you want to debate your topic or do you just want to whine about people calling you on it? > > Your OP was about throw-away article that was a rant of its own and mentioned the Congressional salary increase in a passing way. The facts in the article and your OP were quite misleading. In addition, it is not going to work out well when left-wingers argue that congressional members shouldn’t have a salary that supports their needs. Not the least of which is that making congressional salaries too low leaves the position open only to the rich. > > You have to debate the well-grounded arguments of your position here and you seem both confused and unable to do it. I never said the name calling was in this thread. Debate? In a gripe thread? ---
**Author:** ![lonesome\_loser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@lonesome\_loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lonesome_loser)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/55 "2005-11-21T04:58:43Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Houston, I think we have a problem. There was no name calling there. You are just repeating the same thing over and over without any critical analysis or apparent thought. > > Did you want to debate your topic or do you just want to whine about people calling you on it? > > Your OP was about throw-away article that was a rant of its own and mentioned the Congressional salary increase in a passing way. The facts in the article and your OP were quite misleading. In addition, it is not going to work out well when left-wingers argue that congressional members shouldn’t have a salary that supports their needs. Not the least of which is that making congressional salaries too low leaves the position open only to the rich. > > You have to debate the well-grounded arguments of your position here and you seem both confused and unable to do it. I never said the name calling was in this thread. Debate? In a gripe thread? I loved your joke, poor people running for congress. A real knee slapper. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/56 "2005-11-21T05:06:00Z")
> [@lonesome loser](#): > > I never said the name calling was in this thread. > > Debate? In a gripe thread? Some of the best debates occur in the Pit. The story in the OP lends itself to one of those. In any case, the whole board is devoted to fighting ignorance and you have to be able to respond with facts and rational arguments in any argument you make here. Fire away. You seem to believe that Congresspeople should be getting a wage decrease of some sort (inflation adjusted). 1. What would be an appropriate salary for someone in Congress? How do you come up with that number? 2. Why should they take a pay cut now? 3. What could they do to earn a cost of living adjustment in the future? 4. What other segments of government should be evaluated by outside criteria before getting a yearly cost of living adjustment? If you can’t respond to those, then you need to reconsider your future with this type of rational thought process. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/57 "2005-11-21T14:47:55Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > Back in the early 1990s there was an article in _Harper’s_ magazine about some nutjob who kept writing to his/her Congresscritter claiming that Bob Hope was psychically attacking him/her and causing all kinds of problems in their life. The Congresscritter had the FBI investigate Bob Hope over the matter. One would think that the critter would simply toss those letters in the bin, but according to the article they actually the FBI check ol’ Bob out. One would also think there’s more to the story than that. For one thing, I’m fairly certain the FBI is not an agency of Congress but rather is an agency of the Executive Department. For another, there may be laws against what was asserted in _Harper’s_ (and I await a citation to that story). ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/58 "2005-11-21T16:43:14Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > For another, there may be laws against what was asserted in _Harper’s_ (and I await a citation to that story). As it happens, i have access, through my university, to EBSCOHost, a collection of research databases that allows searching of scholarly and popular journals. _Harper’s_ articles can be searched by abstract back to 1984, and by full text back to 1992. A search found the following: “The Bob Hope Special You Can’t Turn Off,” _Harper’s_, vol. 283, issue 1699 (December, 1991), p. 28, 3pp. Abstract: Presents letters from Sally Fox, a New Orleans woman who has been petitioning government officials and members of the media since the early 1980s to investigate Bob Hope and his interference with the normal thinking of Americans. First letter to major news organizations; Two letters to a woman from Bergen, N.Y.; Letters to Fox from federal agencies. So, it appears that some woman did, indeed, complain about Hope, and that some federal agency/agencies sent her letters in reply. But, because full text is not available in the database for this issue of the magazine, i can’t tell you what the substance of those letters was. It could be that they simply said that they found Hope to present no credible threat to society. If anyone has that particular edition of _Harper’s_, they might be able to shed further light on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Goob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c77e96/32.png) [@Mr.Goob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Goob)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/59 "2005-11-21T18:23:52Z")
> [@lonesome loser](#): > > Most congresscritters, not all, most. are independently wealthy. Especially on the senate side. > > They have no need of a raise. Cite? That doesn’t make sense to me anyways. Most people live within their means or try to grow their wealth. For instance I pay off my bills each month, build home equity and contribute to a 401k. If I was worth a few million dollars I’d still do the same. Why ask somebody who is independently wealthy to work at a job and have to live out of their pocket as well. Most members will or could make a hell of a lot more money in the private sector. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2005, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867/60 "2005-11-22T06:46:23Z")
> [@lonesome loser](#): > > This is very much a right wing board. > Why else are they allowed to call people traitors and liars? Because freedom of speech hasn’t been repelled yet. But go easy on the resident righties; do you know how long it took just to train them to _spell_ “traitors” and “liars” correctly? 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-congresscritters/331867.md?page=4)